Sorry, no wild youth football coaching brawls today. Just the news of a 10-year-old player who was injured during a practice drill, and whose parents are now suing the league. Like the fighting coaches, Ryan Spence is also from Texas. But he was innocently participating in a defensive drill when an assistant coach swung a tackling dummy at him in a drill to show players how to avoid illegal blocks. The dummy hit Ryan in the leg, tearing up his knee (anterior cruciate ligament damage; the works).
The family is suing the head coach and the Mansfield Peewee Football Association for more than $50,000.
From the Mansfield News-Mirror:
The lawsuit alleges that Banschbach, under Sibley’s supervision, was conducting a “highly unconventional drill” to teach players how to avoid being clipped below the waist and hit with illegal low blocks, including chop blocks. A chop block is an illegal maneuver that involves two players striking an opponent above and below the waist at the same time.
The maneuvers are illegal at all levels of football because of the risk of injury, the lawsuit states.
Attorney Patrick Wigle said Ryan’s father, David Spence, had been working with other players on another part of the field when his son, the team’s quarterback, was hurt.
Wigle said the injury, and subsequent surgeries, left Ryan on crutches for about two months. He said the North Texas Youth Football Association’s insurance company denied a claim filed by the family
.
“In Texas, we love football, and it’s important to be competitive, but it’s not important to be competitive at the risk of injury to the children,” Wigle said.
I hate it when you get injured in a drill to show you how to avoid getting injured. Where does the fault lie here? The family has a ton of medical bills that their insurance company won’t pick up, and says the coaches were negligent. But when you allow your child to play tackle football, doesn’t that carry some amount of assumed risk?
From now on all youth football practices should include a clipboard at every station where players must sign a liability waiver before participating in a drill. So it would be: Sign form, hit tackling dummy, hit the ground, jump up, sign waiver, run four laps. With enough pens, that could work.
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Mansfield family sues over injury to youth football player [Mansfield News-Mirror]
